Articular cartilage has little capacity to repair itself or regenerate intrinsically. Therefore, cartilage defects repair by forming scar tissue (or fibrocartilage) from the subchondral bone. This scar tissue is deficient in type II collagen and has “abnormal” proteoglycans (which have inferior biomechanical characteristics) and lower load bearing capacity, and its formation will often result in short term recovery only. This later surface deterioration may progress to give chronic pain and poor function and may in some cases lead to early onset osteoarthritis.
A regional database study of over 30,000 patients found that 63% of knees that undergo arthroscopy are found to have disease in the articular cartilage, and articular chondral lesions are suspected to be the cause of as many as 10% of all knee hemarthroses. Trauma is the most common etiology, but other conditions, such as osteochondritis dissecans and chondromalacia patellae (abnormal softening of the patellar articular cartilage), are also accepted as causes of symptomatic painful articular lesions. Isolated articular cartilage injuries secondary to trauma are rare; more often articular cartilage injuries are seen with other traumatic injuries to the knee, such as ligamentous or meniscal damage.
Osteochondral lesions (and osteochondritis dessicans) are common in adolescents. A recent magnetic resonance imaging study found that after acute trauma the most common injuries to the immature knee were chondral in nature. Traumatic forces are transmitted through the subchondral bone beneath the cartilage, resulting in an osteochondral fracture. Treatment of larger and symptomatic lesions is often surgical. Ideally the aim of surgery is to provide an environment that allows whatever repair tissue is produced (preferably hyaline cartilage) to be integrated with native healthy tissue to provide long term durability and a “normal” knee joint.
In recent years, the potential use of organovanadium as an alternative or adjunct treatment for diabetes has been examined. However, the effects of vanadium compounds on cartilage healing and regeneration are unknown. In particular, no evaluation of vanadium therapy on cartilage regeneration, in particular, repairing of cartilage injuries, has been performed, and in vivo data on cartilage regeneration or repair in the presence of vanadium are still unavailable.